Our Review Process and Rating System

– Ease of use: this refers to user experience, in other words, how fast and easy it is to get the desired meals delivered to your door. This criterion is divided into 2 sub-parameters:

• Website & Application: all the companies we review offer online services. Clients can order meals through their websites. How these websites are built is the first thing we look into. We give the maximum 5-star rating to companies that have user-friendly websites that load fast and provide sufficient information in a clear way. For example, they use separate tabs for each diet or plan or have a menu button that eases navigation.
  We don’t necessarily disqualify companies that don’t provide a mobile app too, but this is always a good addition that helps get a better rating for this parameter:
• Sign-up Process: a fast and easy sign-up process is a must. We give the maximum score to companies that don’t make customers waste more than 10 minutes to create an account. If we find websites that load slowly, have lengthy sign-up forms, or slow account approval and activation, we deduct points from the maximum 5-star rating (0.5 points for each of these issues or more depending on their severity).

– Meal Plans and Meal Selection Options: this is one of our foodies’ favorite parts of the evaluation process. It is also one of the most important sections of our reviews as it helps readers immediately understand what each service offers. In short, at this stage of the evaluation, we focus on what and how many meal plans companies offer. For example, many companies divide their plans according to the number of weekly meal options or dietary preferences. We give very good ratings (4.5 and above) to those that state clearly what each plan offers, if and how it changes on a weekly basis, and how much clients end up paying for each plan. Diversity is another factor that contributes to good ratings.

– Meal Types Available: through this criterion, we evaluate how many and what type of meal options a provider offers. We obviously appreciate those that cover a variety of diets, but we don’t disqualify companies that focus on a single diet (e.g. vegetarian), as long as they clearly advertise their service as such.

– Variety of Recipes: we expect reputable meal delivery services to offer either a good selection of recipes or shifting menus so that clients can enjoy diversity. 12 weekly meals and above is usually what we expect to find to be able to start from a 4-star rating.

– Pricing – we are paying close attention to the companies’ pricing lists and rate them according to the value they offer for the money they charge. For example, some services are pricier because they offer more elaborate meals or organic ingredients.

– Diet Friendliness – services that offer suitable meals for more dietary preferences (vegan, pescatarian, Keto, Paleo, etc.) and those that cater to people with food allergies (gluten, nuts, etc.), and label their recipes accordingly receive the best ratings. 

– Family Friendliness – companies that get a good rating for this parameter offer a wide array of recipes that are also enjoyed by picky little eaters and are fast and easy to prepare (in the case of meal kits). 

– Add-Ons: extras such as shakes, smoothies, cookies, wine, and different other items are considered a plus. 

– Customer Service – we always test how the support department of each company works so we can give it a reliable rating. Depending on the available contact channels, we call, email, or chat to the agents and rate the company according to their attitude, response time, and how knowledgeable they are. 

– Cancellation Policy – most companies allow clients to cancel orders easily within a given time frame. If we spot any unfair terms in a company’s cancellation policy, it won’t get close to the 5-star rating.

Each review also includes a list of suitable alternatives that resemble the reviewed service, so that our readers get a wider array of options.

This section is a central part of each meal delivery service review. Our reviews are 100% genuine, which means a food tester ordered and ate dishes from the reviewed service before writing their article. 

Every article is a comprehensive overview of what each service offers from their website experience and ordering process to how fast the meals are prepared (in case of meal kits), what they taste like, and how easy it is to recycle the packaging.

After they enjoy their meals, our reviewers rate the service according to a 1 to 5 scale for each one of the following parameters: 

The final rating of each provider is calculated as an average score of all the ratings it got for each of the criteria above. Some of our reviewers also offer a separate rating for each meal they try in order to offer readers a broader overview.

There are different aspects we consider while choosing companies for our “Best Of” articles. 

1. Because these articles aim to provide readers with the best options currently available, one of the main criteria we use is customer reviews. We judge companies both by the overall ratings they get on websites such as Trustpilot and the main pros and cons customers talk about.  
2. After selecting the companies that enjoy a good reputation, we go to the second stage – analyzing and comparing their offering. At this stage, we look into the following: meal plans and meal recipes variety, taste, pricing, add-ons, packaging, preparation time (only for meal kits). 
3. The final step is an analysis of the practical aspects related to each service – order process, delivery time, customer support service, and cancellation options. 

For each one of these parameters, we use the same 5-star rating system. Because meal delivery services and meal kits services are different, we analyze them separately. In the case of ready-made meals, we put great emphasis on freshness and for meal kits, we give an honest rating for how easy it was to prepare the meals. 

The writers we rely on for our “Best Of” articles are people who specialize in specific fields such as nutritionists, dietitians, cookbook writers, restaurant consultants, cooking enthusiasts with experience in specific cuisines, or people who advocate for specific diets. 

Our website also offers comparison articles in which we analyze two or more services that focus more or less on the same niche (e.g. vegetarian, family-friendly, etc.). Each comparison is based on our existing reviews. All the companies we compare are assessed for the following criteria: 

The service that has the best results based on these parameters is the overall winner. To make it easy to compare specific services, we have a filter that allows users to select the companies they want to compare. After choosing two companies, all it takes to get the comparison is to click the ‘Compare’ button. The most popular comparisons are listed below the filter.

There are plenty of reviews on our website and we invested a lot of time in making sure each company was correctly evaluated according to our rating system. The purpose of this system is to keep all reviews transparent, honest, and in line with the latest tendencies in the meal delivery industry. Thanks to how we conduct our reviews, our website has become a go-to source for readers’ meal delivery-related questions, and we aim to continue offering reliable advice in the future.